JayB

Lab rat in a virology group for another couple of weeks. I can't remember much about immunology other than we have different types of white cells that perform different functions - but the case for the safety and efficacy of vaccination against a certain roster of diseases is so thoroughly established that it just can't be disputed. I'm sure that you're correct in saying that once you have a kid of your own, the way that you look at the world changes quite a bit.

Can you point me to these studies? I'm interested in seeing how in depth this has been studied. JayB et al....one of anecdotes in this thread and elsewhere is that the those that choose not to vaccinate are either religious wackos, or paranoid ignorants gobbling up conspiracy theories. The irony is that one of the primary discouragers of the MMR vaccination is Dr. Sears, the father of attachment parenting (family bed, anti sleep training, etc.). His reason for not giving your infant the MMR vaccine is that, according to him, the probability of side effects from the vaccine are greater than the odds of contracting the diseases themselves. You can choose to agree or disagree with this reasoning, but it's still REASONing. It might be a side effect of literally going days at a time when I don't interact with anyone who isn't an M.D., a PhD in the life sciences, or a combination of both - but I no longer automatically grant these folks the same deference when they're speaking on topics that are not strictly within the scope of their professional competence. My hunch is that the guy's position on vaccination relegates him to the lunatic fringe amongst those M.D.s or M.D./PhD's who specialize in these matters, and who are most competent to evaluate the validity of his claims. Depending on the risks that we're talking about, which presumably excludes autism in the case that this Dr. puts forth, I agree - there's a certain kind of reasoning at work here. However, my own unqualified position is that this guy's stance is highly contingent on the assumption that the vast majority of parents will continue to vaccinate their children against these diseases - and that if that this changes because significant numbers of parents heed his advice on these matters - we'll see a rapid resurgence in the incidence of these diseases, and the risks to unvaccinated children will escalate until enough children are killed or debilitated by them to knock the complacency out of parents. I said earlier that if parents choose not to vaccinate their children - I'm not comfortable with a state that's powerful and intrusive enough to compel them to do so - but if they choose to piss in the proverbial pot of public immunity, then I'm quite comfortable granting schools, employers, etc the right to exclude them based on the risk that their absence of immunity poses to others around them. I'm not a parent at the moment, but I'm certainly looking forward to the day when I am - and any kids that we do have will be vaccinated right on schedule, no question about it.

Can you point me to these studies? I'm interested in seeing how in depth this has been studied. There is a *vast* literature available on this. "1: Drug Saf. 2004;27(12):831-40.Links MMR vaccination and autism : what is the evidence for a causal association? Madsen KM, Vestergaard M. Department of Epidemiology and Social Medicine, The Danish Epidemiology Science Centre, Aarhus, Denmark. KMM@dadlnet.dk It has been suggested that vaccination with the measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine causes autism. The wide-scale use of the MMR vaccine has been reported to coincide with the apparent increase in the incidence of autism. Case reports have described children who developed signs of both developmental regression and gastrointestinal symptoms shortly after MMR vaccination.A review of the literature revealed no convincing scientific evidence to support a causal relationship between the use of MMR vaccines and autism. No primate models exist to support the hypothesis. The biological plausibility remains questionable and there is a sound body of epidemiological evidence to refute the hypothesis. The hypothesis has been subjected to critical evaluation in many different ways, using techniques from molecular biology to population-based epidemiology, and with a vast number of independent researchers involved, none of which has been able to corroborate the hypothesis." "1: Clin Pharmacol Ther. 2007 Dec;82(6):756-9. Epub 2007 Oct 10.Click here to read Links Vaccines and autism: evidence does not support a causal association. DeStefano F. Statistics and Epidemiology Unit, RTI International, Atlanta, Georgia, USA. fdestefano@rti.org A suggested association between certain childhood vaccines and autism has been one of the most contentious vaccine safety controversies in recent years. Despite compelling scientific evidence against a causal association, many parents and parent advocacy groups continue to suspect that vaccines, particularly measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine and thimerosal-containing vaccines (TCVs), can cause autism." Etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, It might be worthwhile for you to look through the literature in Pubmed. If there are any journal articles that you find that you'd like to get PDF reprints of, shoot me a PM and I can send it to you via e-mail.

"Bleh. Between the bolting and this nefangled sticky-mucus, there's no challenge left in this sport.."

I think that you are largely correct about the fact that no small part of the confusion here is a consequence of the fact that this vaccine is given right around the time that it becomes possible to differentiate between a normal baby and an autistic one. Autism aside - I think that you can make a reasonably good case that the roster of objective threats that imperil the health and well being of first world children is both smaller, and more abundantly characterized at this point than at any time in human history. I think on the whole, we're much more aware of and better able to detect and control acutely toxic substances in the environment than we were in - say - the early 70's. The air and water are cleaner, the food is safer, the etc. Ditto for our ability to protect children from head injuries, drowning, electric shock - you name it. When it comes to the subjective hazards that children have to contend with on account of parents that are simultaneously overindulgent and overprotective - there are an awful lot of kids today that face a gauntlet quite a bit more formidable than anything that most of us had to face while cruising down to the 7-11 sans helmets, walking past the creepy dude who'd spent the past 9 months of his life trying to log the high-score on Galaga, and buying some Cokes with the pull-top lids before setting off to play in the vacant lot next to the junkyard.

I think it's worth noting that increased incidence and increased diagnosis are two very different things. Take a gander at the stats for "ADHD" in the US in the 1960s versus the present, or compare virtually any industrialized nation with demographics similar to the US in this decade. With regards to autism, I'm not entirely convinced that what we're seeing isn't a consequence of an increased awareness of all of the manifestations of autism here, rather than any actual increase in the incidence of the disorder. Virtually every child in the world who isn't an inhabitant of a festering, god-forsaken shithole that's relapsed into a state of barbarism and madness - or never emerged out of it - gets vaccinated as a child, and I suspect a substantial portion of these get the same vaccines. The only place where this autism-vaccination hysteria has manifested itself are those places where people no longer have a living memory of watching their children die before their eyes after succumbing to entirely preventable diseases. Dealing with an autistic child looks like a protracted, life-long nightmare to me - and I have an enormous amount of sympathy for anyone who is unfortunate enough to have to shoulder that burden. However, ignoring the indisputable facts concerning the safety and efficacy of the single most beneficial medical intervention in the history of mankind and flattering the anti-scientific delusions brought forth in response to this bizarre, destructive, and profoundly irrational manifestation of their grief is something that any sane society should denounce and resist.

The anti-Vaccination fever seems to have caught with the nut-cases on both sides. Plenty of homeopathovegorgano folks on the anti-vaccine train these days as well. There's a fine line out there that I don't want to cross when it comes to the power of the state to enforce compulsory medical treatments of any kind - but I do think its entirely reasonable for school districts, health insurance companies, employers to decline admission to people who have "opted out" of vaccination against diseases. If someone wants to live in a "state of nature," I'm more than happy for them to indulge that fetish on their own so long as they're prepared to deal with the consequences. When it comes to children, I think the question gets tougher - since any parent who knowingly let their child die of diabetes for ideological reasons should be tried for murder just as surely as if they'd beaten or starved them to death - but exposure to potential harm at some point in the future is something more nebulous than direct harm, and I don't think that this warrants state compulsion or prosecution. But back to the matter at hand - if you had told people in the early 20th century that by the end of the century we'd have developed treatments that would make everyone immune to the diseases that had been ravaging humanity for all of eternity, and then told them that parents were denying their children these vaccines, and explained their rationale for doing so - I can only imagine what their response would be...

Amazing stuff. Quite depressing. Heartland of Darkness...

There's a bunch of agencies out there that specialize in placing physicians, etc that you can use if you don't get any bites on the boards.

Close enough.

Curling?

I don't support the idea, but when you consider that there are candidates basing their entire economic policy on reviving protectionism - it gets a fairly low score on the Campaign '08 RetardoMeter.

Yes you are. Glad to hear that someone else on the board has discovered how to enjoy the flip side of the hydrological cycle. Maine is no WA, but it was definitely delivering up the goods on that front this weekend. So many beautiful places....

There was this little bit of info in the article... "Last month's median house price was $448,500, the Northwest Multiple Listing Service reports. That's almost $19,000 above February and about $10,000 higher than March. But it still falls 3.6 percent short of the previous April's $465,000" But anyhow...C'mon, amigo. You know that $50 of the bet was on Case-Shiller-Weiss, and the other $50 was on a home that you were supposed to select as of Nov 1 '08. No one uses the NWMLS stats as a reliable guide to what's going on with the value of the average home, at least not anyone that's lending money (I hope). When the CSW numbers for April come out in June, I'm pretty confident that they'll reveal that the NWMLS median numbers got a bump as a result of the sales mix changing, with more high-end homes changing hands relative to less expensive places. Time will tell.

Yeah fun stuff, but I decided it would be a good activity when I am old my body can't take the climbing, freeriding and snowboarding. Yeah - I've been thinking that flatwater and/or sea-kayaking would be a cool thing to do with kids once they enter the picture. In the meantime - Man! - the rivers in your former home-base delivered up the goods this weekend. I heart Maine.

Given the percentage of the electorate that falls into this category, it's little wonder that the candidates are competing for their votes....

I can attest to the fact that the direct communication that people who don't live in the NE love to applaud from a distance is considerably less charming in person. I'd kind of enjoy watching people who sing the praises of these virtues via a hidden camera while they drive through Boston. "Hey - the guy who ran the red light and almost T-boned me while narrowly missing two pedestrians while tossing his trash out the window and flipping the old lady with the cane off when she yelled at him to slow down...aaaah, how delightfully self-assertive, how bracingly direct and iconoclastic, such a wonderfully change from that stultifying civility and restraint in the PNW...." Not likely to happen, I'd say. I'll take people who are generally civil, keep their hostility to themselves, and at least pretend to care about extending the same courtesy to others that they'd like to have extended to themselves most of the time anyday. There'll be at least two vacancies here in a couple of months. Any of you folks pining for the attributes that are so sorely lacking in the PNW are welcome to my spot. All yours.

Seems like you can pretty much exempt most non-chossy, non R/X cragging routes that don't have a line at the base on a busy day from the statistical definition of moderate. Seems like 5.11 sport, 5.10 trad, and WI4+ gets you there most of the time. I doubt that's changed all that much over the course of the past twenty years, since for most of us, leading at that level will require getting out consistently and keeping the climbing fitness at a fairly high level (for us). For me at least, the time commitment associated with pushing my top-end clean lead grades higher than where they've topped out in the past - mid 11 sport, mid ten trad, WI4, V4 - would involve committing more time and energy to climbing than I have the time or inclination to put forth, since that would mean taking too much time away from other pursuits that I enjoy just as much. Climbing is great, but there's a lot of other great stuff out there.

Waiting for someone on cc.com to start channeling the ghost of Samuel Johnson and exclaim "Tosh!" instead of "bullshit." My money's on Ivan...

Such...cough..turkeybaster...cough...innocence. Must not have stayed in the lesbian rampart *that* long....

Just make sure that no one strips out the appliances and the copper pipes in the meantime...

The standard route on Whitehorse Ledge is pretty sweet. 5.5-5.7. Most of the gullies on Mt. Washington's Huntington Ravine. Frostbite Ridge on Glacier Peak. Standard Route on Frankenstein (WI3) Keiner's Route, Long's Peak. Center Route, Cynical Pinnacle. (South Platte. 5.8, 5.9, 5.8 with a bit of aidable 5.12 to the top if I recall correctly). Standard Route on Exfoliation Dome. For me, "moderate" usually ends at anything more than a single-pitch of 5.9 crack/trade, ice harder than WI3, most routes with more than 5-10 pitches (depending on the grade), anything that's far enough out there that getting stuck on the route could result in suffering and/or a calamity in the wrong conditions, and anything that leaves me feeling wiped the day afterwards. Just to take one consensus moderate as an example, the climbing between the notch and the gendarme on the UNR of Stuart was amazing, but I was still very focused, keeping an eye on the time and the weather, and just generally felt like I was a long way from home. After leading the gendarme pitches, I felt less so - but the overall experience was far from "moderate" for me, and I wasn't truly relaxed, soaking up the scenery, and generally savoring the alpine ambience until I was laying on a sunny rock on the summit. No rain, no lightning, no crazy wind, no health issues, no running out of water, no falls on the (*$#ing off-width that'd been preoccupying my imagination for days - "Phew - yes....moderate..."

"Michael Moore, hard at work gathering new material for his next hard hitting expose'- Sacko..."

Seen at Tuckerman's Ravine, 4/19/08: